Interviews

Sépopo Galley is Director of Programming at the Festival international Nuits d’Afrique. She can be proud to have taken on this responsibility, still too rarely attributed to women, and even less to Afro-descendant women. Before migrating to Canada, she lived in France, where she held administrative duties for a theatre company in Normandy, before which she held a relatively similar position in Avignon. Now firmly in the saddle at Nuits d’Afrique for a third year running, Sépopo explains to PAN M 360 how she works within an organization that has been active for almost four full decades.

PAN M 360: How did you become part of the Nuits d’Afrique organization?

Sépopo Galley: After arriving in Montreal three years ago, I started working in production at Nuits d’Afrique, then found myself in programming in 2021.

PAN M 360: Obviously, you’re familiar with the music that fits Nuit d’Afrique’s profiles, so you’ve developed your own knowledge.

Sépopo Galley: Yes, I’ve proven myself, and I’ve also discovered a lot of things, and we’re always discovering new things. It’s a constant process of discovery.

PAN M 360: What’s your angle? How do you see the artistic programming at Nuits d’Afrique?

Sépopo Galley: I see freshness, I see novelty. There’s so much new talent out there, I want to be able to showcase it. But we still need to keep the Nuits d’Afrique base, because we need a mix of generations. That’s what makes the program so rich, but I think we need to bring in a bit of freshness, either with music that still retains its roots, or with a more modern approach.

PAN M 360: You’re certainly aware of the general feel of Nuits d’Afrique and the type of programming put forward over the last 40 years now. How have you adapted to this vision? How do you see yourself implementing your own way of doing things, and your own artistic personality through your choices?

Sépopo Galley: You also have to be humble and try to listen to the advice of the people who have been there since the very beginning 38 years ago, and whose vision has led Nuits d’Afrique to become one of Montreal’s major festivals. So, to take what has been done, consolidate it and take it elsewhere without distorting the purpose.

PAN M 360: And what does “take it elsewhere” mean?

Sépopo Galley: In this program, there are artists from our label who are new. There are also artists I’ve discovered at festivals and specialized conventions. So, we’ve spotted artists who bring something new to the table, who make contemporary music like afrobeat. As for artists from elsewhere, we’re looking for Montreal artists with whom we haven’t had much opportunity to work, and who have a fresh touch to offer. There are also artists from abroad.

PAN M 360: If we put names to this, for example, what do you find refreshing about the Nuits d’Afrique 2023 program?

Sépopo Galley: Blick Bassy and Eliasse, who are playing on Thursday, are good examples. Spontaneously, I would add Yemi Alade, The Bongo Up, Sona Jobarteh, Kaleta & Super Yamba Band. Several international or local artists invited this year who have never come before. Several premieres on the program!

PAN M 360: So this programming is done in collegiality with the management of Nuits d’Afrique, in order to maintain this harmonious relationship between past and present.

Sépopo Galley: Exactly! I’m the one who does the initial work, I orientate a little according to what I’d like to propose, and then we get together in the programming committee and make the decisions together.

PAN M 360: Now, of course, the enigma for international festivals is Nigeria, whose cultural output has been exploding in recent years. Last year, Yemi Alade was the victim of Canadian customs delays and was able to perform in Montreal in November, before returning outdoors in a few days’ time at Nuits d’Afrique. This is not strictly a problem for Nuits d’Afrique, as we observed at the Santa-Teresa festival last May and at the Jazz Festival more recently. How do you explain this?

Sépopo Galley: I can’t explain it, I don’t know where the problem lies. Personally, I’d say that there’s also the matter of preparing the files and the time it takes to process them through Canadian customs. As you said, it’s a recurring problem, but we have no explanation.

PAN M 360: So why have you done so little afrobeat?

Sépopo Galley: We’re trying now. Maybe we didn’t jump on the bandwagon right away, but now it’s music that’s very well represented, much loved, that we have to promote because people ask for it. There’s quite a strong demand, and it’s good music. It’s the kind of music that a lot of people are listening to nowadays, and we’d like to continue in that vein as well, we’d like to continue, and we’ll be working further upstream.

PAN M 360: Is 2023 the real year of post-pandemic recovery?

Sépopo Galley: No, last year was similar. We got ready after COVID. In 2021, we ran an all-local festival, and now we’re back in full force with the opening of our two stages on L’Esplanade Tranquille. We have workshops, we’ve innovated with outdoor cabarets, our market has expanded, there’s lots of activities!

Les Violons du Roy will join acclaimed French trumpet player Lucienne Renaudin-Vary in a program featuring the music of composer Joseph Haydn. Whether it’s a coincidence of the calendar or a well-thought-out marketing coup by the festival, on this July 14th, it’s under the theme of Haydn in Paris that the performers will gather at the Amphithéâtre Fernand-Lindsay. On the program: a selection of Haydn’s Paris symphonies, composed between 1785 and 1786, and the Trumpet Concerto in E-flat major. PAN M 360 spoke to Jonathan Cohen, musical director of Les Violons du Roy, about this concert.

PAN M 360 : What sparked the idea of this program around Haydn and his Parisian symphonies? 

Jonathan Cohen : It’s a little bit our idea and a little bit of conversation with Renaud Loranger in figuring  out a nice program for the summer. I’m so glad that we settled on this program. It’s rare that we can devote a whole program to Haydn.  It’s a wonderful thing because normally in big symphony concerts, Haydn’s music is always the opening number, or the symphony serves as a warm-up for something else. It’s a real joy to put the spotlight on Haydn with a whole program devoted to him. It’s a real joy. A real triumph, in fact.

PAN M 360 : There are six symphonies in total in this ensemble of Parisian symphonies. You will be playing a selection of three. What are the particularities of these symphonies?  

Jonathan Cohen : We wanted to make a nice selection and these are pieces we know well. In fact, the only piece I don’t think we’ve played before is Symphony No. 82 “The Bear”. There’s also a nice variety in the program. In Haydn’s music in general, there’s a bit of everything. He’s a master of contrast. There’s a lot of difference between the pieces and in the movements. For example, in “The Hen”, the slow movement is a little jewel, extremely precious and romantic, almost religious, whereas in “The Bear”, there’s a very martial character. And then you have these very fast final movements for which Haydn is famous, which require enormous technical ability on the part of the orchestra and a large number of musicians.

PAN M 360 : If I’m not mistaken, at the time, the size of the orchestra that is required was quite unusual, is it not? 

Jonathan Cohen : In different places the fashion was different. When Mozart wrote his Paris Symphony for example, his father told him that he should make it very loud because the French liked very loud, big manifestations of royal music and make it very grand, because that’s what they loved. In a world, which was not connected by the Internet, there was much more diversity, I think, between styles in cities and nations and orchestras. And everyone really had a slightly different angle.  I remember when I played a lot of Haydn when I was younger, I was in a group called the London Haydn Quartet. We did  programs of only Haydn’s music, and we found it quite amazing using different editions of the time. Each edition, whether in England, Vienna or Paris. Some would be very legato with lots of slurs everywhere, some other editions would be the same music in the same period of time. They were changed, adapted and edited. These Parisian Symphonies were edited by the chevalier de Saint-Georges, who conducted their creation. They would have made it their own.  It’s a nice thought that today we tend to think of “old music” a bit like a museum and what the composer wrote was a real fact of truth, when actually, at the time, people were adapting and making music really their own and was composed for particular people in different styles and much more flexible.

PAN M 360 : The unique concerto of the concert will  put French  trumpet player Lucienne Reanaudin-Vary on the foreground. Was it her choice to play this concerto, or was it a decision by you or Renaud Loranger to put that piece in the program?

Jonathan Cohen : It is a joint decision. Renaud wanted to invite Lucienne for a long time. She’s a very celebrated trumpet player from France and it will be my first time working with her. I’m really looking forward to it with this great concerto. It’s quite a late piece from Haydn that was first performed in 1800 when he was already an old man in his 60s. It was a time where the trumpet was really developing. It’s an interesting story because the trumpet didn’t used to have keys and valves. This was one of the first pieces, where Haydn is exploring the chromatic range in the middle register of the trumpet. It’s a mature piece of Haydn’s, a wonderful piece and maybe one of his most celebrated concertos. 

PAN M 360 : What do you like about Haydn’s music?
Jonathan Cohen : He’s one of my favorite composers because I think he’s a man that has a lot of goodwill and good nature in life.  He was also a great inventor. It’s hard to look back in history, but at the time when Haydn was writing, he was single-handedly creating a new type of music for orchestra by developing the symphony out of the concerto grosso. During his time composing for the Esterhazys he used the professional orchestra that he had at his disposal for experimenting. Like in a laboratory, he was inventing all the time. That’s why he’s known as the Father of the Symphony. He’s very pure; his music is positive, very creative and original, humorous and witty. He has an attachment to humanity. I think he really celebrates that in his music. That’s why I think it’s a nice program for summer as well. It is rejoicing.

PROGRAM

Haydn à Paris

Les Violons du Roy

Direction: Jonathan Cohen

Lucienne Renaudin-Vary, trompette

Les Violons du Roy will join acclaimed French trumpet player Lucienne Renaudin-Vary in a program featuring the music of composer Joseph Haydn. Whether it’s a coincidence of the calendar or a well-thought-out marketing coup by the festival, on this July 14th, it’s under the theme of Haydn in Paris that the performers will gather at the Amphithéâtre Fernand-Lindsay. On the program: a selection of Haydn’s Paris symphonies, composed between 1785 and 1786, and the Trumpet Concerto in E-flat major. PAN M 360 spoke to Jonathan Cohen, musical director of Les Violons du Roy, about this concert.

PAN M 360 : What sparked the idea of this program around Haydn and his Parisian symphonies? 

Jonathan Cohen : It’s a little bit our idea and a little bit of conversation with Renaud Loranger in figuring  out a nice program for the summer. I’m so glad that we settled on this program. It’s rare that we can devote a whole program to Haydn.  It’s a wonderful thing because normally in big symphony concerts, Haydn’s music is always the opening number, or the symphony serves as a warm-up for something else. It’s a real joy to put the spotlight on Haydn with a whole program devoted to him. It’s a real joy. A real triumph, in fact.

PAN M 360 : There are six symphonies in total in this ensemble of Parisian symphonies. You will be playing a selection of three. What are the particularities of these symphonies?  

Jonathan Cohen : We wanted to make a nice selection and these are pieces we know well. In fact, the only piece I don’t think we’ve played before is Symphony No. 82 “The Bear”. There’s also a nice variety in the program. In Haydn’s music in general, there’s a bit of everything. He’s a master of contrast. There’s a lot of difference between the pieces and in the movements. For example, in “The Hen”, the slow movement is a little jewel, extremely precious and romantic, almost religious, whereas in “The Bear”, there’s a very martial character. And then you have these very fast final movements for which Haydn is famous, which require enormous technical ability on the part of the orchestra and a large number of musicians.

PAN M 360 : If I’m not mistaken, at the time, the size of the orchestra that is required was quite unusual, is it not? 

Jonathan Cohen : In different places the fashion was different. When Mozart wrote his Paris Symphony for example, his father told him that he should make it very loud because the French liked very loud, big manifestations of royal music and make it very grand, because that’s what they loved. In a world, which was not connected by the Internet, there was much more diversity, I think, between styles in cities and nations and orchestras. And everyone really had a slightly different angle.  I remember when I played a lot of Haydn when I was younger, I was in a group called the London Haydn Quartet. We did  programs of only Haydn’s music, and we found it quite amazing using different editions of the time. Each edition, whether in England, Vienna or Paris. Some would be very legato with lots of slurs everywhere, some other editions would be the same music in the same period of time. They were changed, adapted and edited. These Parisian Symphonies were edited by the chevalier de Saint-Georges, who conducted their creation. They would have made it their own.  It’s a nice thought that today we tend to think of “old music” a bit like a museum and what the composer wrote was a real fact of truth, when actually, at the time, people were adapting and making music really their own and was composed for particular people in different styles and much more flexible.

PAN M 360 : The unique concerto of the concert will  put French  trumpet player Lucienne Reanaudin-Vary on the foreground. Was it her choice to play this concerto, or was it a decision by you or Renaud Loranger to put that piece in the program?

Jonathan Cohen : It is a joint decision. Renaud wanted to invite Lucienne for a long time. She’s a very celebrated trumpet player from France and it will be my first time working with her. I’m really looking forward to it with this great concerto. It’s quite a late piece from Haydn that was first performed in 1800 when he was already an old man in his 60s. It was a time where the trumpet was really developing. It’s an interesting story because the trumpet didn’t used to have keys and valves. This was one of the first pieces, where Haydn is exploring the chromatic range in the middle register of the trumpet. It’s a mature piece of Haydn’s, a wonderful piece and maybe one of his most celebrated concertos. 

PAN M 360 : What do you like about Haydn’s music?
Jonathan Cohen : He’s one of my favorite composers because I think he’s a man that has a lot of goodwill and good nature in life.  He was also a great inventor. It’s hard to look back in history, but at the time when Haydn was writing, he was single-handedly creating a new type of music for orchestra by developing the symphony out of the concerto grosso. During his time composing for the Esterhazys he used the professional orchestra that he had at his disposal for experimenting. Like in a laboratory, he was inventing all the time. That’s why he’s known as the Father of the Symphony. He’s very pure; his music is positive, very creative and original, humorous and witty. He has an attachment to humanity. I think he really celebrates that in his music. That’s why I think it’s a nice program for summer as well. It is rejoicing.

PROGRAMME

Haydn à Paris

Les Violons du Roy

Direction: Jonathan Cohen

Lucienne Renaudin-Vary, trumpet

Symphony No. 83 in G minor, Hob. I : 83 “The Hen

Symphony no. 85 in B flat major, Hob. I: 85 “The Queen

Trumpet Concerto in E-flat major, Hob. VIIe/1

Symphony No. 82 in C major, Hob. I: 82 “The Bear

AU FESTIVAL DE LANAUDIÈRE, LES VIOLONS DU ROY PRÉSENTENT LE PROGRAMME HAYDN À PARIS, CE VENDREDI 14 JUILLET, 20H, AMPHITHÉÂTRE FERNAND LINDSAY


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Cellist Noémie Raymond-Friset has won numerous awards for her refined interpretations of the cello repertoire. Not only a soloist, she also frequently performs with chamber ensembles and is a much-appreciated teacher. PAN M 360 caught up with Noémie Raymond-Friset to find out more about the program bridging two eras that she will be presenting for the solo concert in the open air in a few days’ time.

PAN M 360: Hello! To begin with, let’s talk about the context of the concert you’ll be giving on Saturday. It will take place in a garden, won’t it?

Noémie Raymond-Friset: Yes, the concert will take place around 11 am. It’s really meant to be a concert in a more relaxed setting. I think it’s going to be really interesting to do that. The field should be in bloom, so it’ll be a very inspiring setting for an outdoor concert. I’ve played outdoors before, especially during the pandemic. Also, when I was a student at Domaine Forget, I once played a concert at Bleu Lavande.

PAN M 360: As a performer, what distinguishes this departure from the concert hall to offer a program in an outdoor setting?

Noémie Raymond-Friset: I think it adds another dimension to the music. In a concert hall, you focus on the beauty of the place and its acoustics. It gives you the impression of being in a little box designed specifically for a concert, whereas when you go outside, it’s certain that what surrounds you is just as much part of the performance, whether it’s the smells or the visuals. There’s more going on, too. Birds come around, a butterfly lands on my bow – I’ve done that before! It takes the music out of its purely musical focus, and gives it a more multidisciplinary aspect, if you can call it that. I find it very interesting to be able to create moments that you can’t find in a concert hall.

PAN M 360: And is this the first time you’ve played at the Festival de Lanaudière?

Noémie Raymond-Friset: No, I’ve played in ensembles before, including once with an ensemble of 12 cellos. But this will be my first solo performance, with my own project.

PAN M 360: In fact, you’ve titled this project Le violoncelle en deux temps (Cello in two parts). What does this title mean, and what are the two times of the cello that you will be presenting to the public?

Noémie Raymond-Friset: I was talking to Janick Simard, who’s in charge of the Hors les murs series. We were thinking that, since it’s a program entirely for solo cello, there would be a lot of Baroque music, since the solo repertoire for the instrument developed a lot during this period. After that, there was not much going on in the Classical and Romantic eras. But the solo cello repertoire starts to develop again in the modern era, especially from the 1900s onwards. We thought it would be interesting to link Baroque and modern pieces. That’s where the title comes from. I wanted to highlight the idea that the solo cello repertoire developed in two phases.

PAN M 360: How did you choose the works for this particular concert?

Noémie Raymond-Friset: I wanted to emphasize the contrast between these two periods in the history of the solo cello repertoire. I started with Johann Sebastian Bach’s preludes, which are really the best-known works of the Baroque period for the cello. I wanted to find pieces to parallel and contrast with each of the preludes. I had to do hours of research to find which pieces would be interesting to link with Bach’s works.

PAN M 360: What common thread did you find between the pieces? Is there a story you want to tell, a specific listening path?

Noémie Raymond-Friset: Yes, there will be a certain story that emerges from the program, but the common thread really lies at the level of the pure music. There’s a link either in tonality or in style. I was really looking for an element to weld the works together. So there’s a pretty fluid flow between the pieces. I felt that there were some amalgams to be made, especially in terms of sound and musicality.

PAN M 360: What can we expect from this concert?

Noémie Raymond-Friset: I think we can expect some great discoveries, as there will be some works that are rarely played. For example, I’ll be playing a sonata for solo cello by Prokofiev, which even very few of my cellist friends know. Despite the fact that it’s not a contemporary piece per se, it’s still not very well known. I think a lot of people will already be familiar with Bach’s preludes, so this may be a return to the roots, and it’s certainly music that’s pleasant to listen to. Other pieces, on the other hand, will be a little more surprising and will push back the boundaries we’re used to seeing or hearing. So I think it’s going to be a nice bouquet.

PAN M 360: Finally, what’s next for you? Are there any other projects in which you’ll be involved in the future?

Noémie Raymond-Friset: Yes, I have several projects this summer, including a concert in Toronto that will be recorded by CBC and broadcast in the following months. I’ll be part of Virée classique, and I’ll be performing with my duo (Duo Cavatine) in August, to promote our first album, Cellopéra! And several other projects in the fall, which I can’t talk about yet, but which will be very interesting!

NOÉMIE RAYMOND-FRISET WILL PERFORM SATURDAY, JULY 15 AT 11 AM, AT JARDINS ARÔMES ET SAVEURS. INFO AND TICKETS HERE!

Bianca Rocha, a Brazilian musician who immigrated to Canada in 2019, found her footing in Montreal thanks to Nuits d’Afrique. She’s since performed at every subsequent festival, but this year is special; she’ll be bringing her debut album, 2022’s Fim de Mundo, to the festival stage for the first time.

PAN M 360: Hi Bianca. Could we start with you telling us about your 20 years of experience with various musical genres, as well as your degree in music education?

Bianca Rocha: I grew up in a family of musicians – singers, in fact, and I’m the youngest of four kids. I started my career singing with my sister, two brothers, and my father on a weekly basis when I was three years old. We competed in a Brazilian radio show, then after I became an adult, I did my bachelor’s in music to be an instructor for babies. Before leaving for Montreal, I was a teacher and singer, but since I’ve gotten here, I’ve moved away from teaching. Now I do a lot of different work as a singer, mostly working in studios and vocal directing.

PAN M 360: What brought you from Brazil to Montreal in 2019?

Bianca Rocha: It’s because of my husband, actually. He’s a program coordinator and he got a job offer from some friends. It was also a question of Brazil’s elected president being far-right. I was afraid of all that, and his election concretized my fears and nightmares since we have a kid. We took it as an opportunity to leave. With Montreal and Quebec it was love at first sight so we decided to stay.

PAN M 360: What made you fall in love with Quebec?

Bianca Rocha: The cultural side. I love being part of the mix of cultures. I see, with eyes full of hope, the mix of people who come from different parts of the world, different countries I couldn’t even find on a map. Being part of this musical scene – this experience – is magical, and it gives me hope for a better world because people can leave next to one another without war. The experience of being a musician is the same here; there’s a vibe of hope.

PAN M 360: How would you say you’ve translated that feeling into your newest album, Fim du Mundo?

Bianca Rocha: The album is based on a poem that was given to me by a close friend as well as how we have to do something about the environment, and the Portuguese expression ‘Fim du Mundo.’ The expression describes the end of the world in our personal lives, like when we end a relationship or when something really sad happens that destroys our world. When I read the poem, I thought about this, because I wanted to talk about how you can rebuild your personal world when it burns or breaks. But when people talk about the end of the world I think about how, in 2023, there’s this big environmental question. In both situations, you have to have hope, and you have to do something. You can’t just give up. There’s a lot we can do – a lot of demands we can make to politicians and world leaders – which is the hope I’m trying to communicate in these songs.

PAN M 360: What’s the importance of being able to address these topics, to you?

Bianca Rocha: As a human being, I see how we’re all part of the same worldwide group. I have a voice, I can sing. I wouldn’t say it’s an obligation – that wording is a little strong – but I feel obliged to do something, so I use my voice. That’s why I promote recycling and try to reduce pollutants in my daily life.

PAN M 360: Is there a connection between these ideas and your desire to immigrate from Brazil?

Bianca Rocha: I don’t think so. I think it helps me see things on a grander scale. I saw mostly Brazilian perspectives before I moved, but now I talk with people who give me more references for how things work elsewhere. 

PAN M 360: When you immigrated in 2019, that was also the first year you performed at Nuits d’Afrique, and you’ve been performing there for a couple of years now. What brings you back to the show every year?

Bianca Rocha: Nuits d’Afrique isn’t the first scene I played here, but it’s the first festival I played, with Rodrigo Simões. The festival is significant to the passion I have for Montreal. The festival always takes place at the beginning of summer, and I got here in April. I was in the process of getting to know the city and its vibe because we didn’t do a lot of research before we came here. So when I got here and saw the festival it was love at first sight again, because it’s a place where immigrants like myself or people from elsewhere are spotlighted and valorized. It gave me a lot of hope for the world. I decided to come back every year and it’s always been a different experience, so I’m always going to keep an open door and an open heart for the festival. It’s also a respectful event, and I love that.

PAN M 360: And what are you doing at this year’s show that’s different?

Bianca Rocha: This year’s concert is special because it’s the first year I’m presenting songs from my album. In previous years I was always presenting music from other peoples’ projects. I also chose a more festive repertoire, and the most special part is that I’ll be sharing the festival stage with Flavia Nascimento for the first time. In the Brazilian community, we call her The Sun because her voice, strong energy, and heart always make everything sunny. She has an enormous heart and sharing the stage with her is always a pleasure, so I’m really honoured to have her with me to share our culture. 

PAN M 360: What kinds of projects are you working on currently?

Bianca Rocha: I have a few things already in the works. There’s one special that’ll come out in the Fall – I don’t have the date but it’s La Sauce Piquante with Eli Levinson. Another cool project I’m doing involves mostly women I know here in Montreal. I can’t talk about it much more because I want to keep it secret. I also have a music video that just came out – my last single from my recent album – that had a good reception. It talks about violence towards women, and in this case, specifically, it’s about a woman who’s too scared to leave her home.

PAN M 360: Why is it important for you to be able to get feminist messages out?

Bianca Rocha: When someone is alone in a violent situation, it can feel lonely, and like it’s impossible to leave. The song is a message for people to be more attentive and empathetic because everyone knows someone who’s been in a situation involving physical or psychological violence. There are plenty of people around my age in Brazil too who have experienced this. The message of music is that you’re not alone. You’re always in your own corner. You can recover and find yourself, and when you decide to leave, you need to ask for help. There are organizations and people who are there to support you in these moments – more and more around the world lately – but it’s still necessary to talk about this. 

PAN M 360: Thank you so much Bianca, it’s admirable that you have the strength and bravery to share these messages. Good luck with Nuits d’Afrique!

BIANCA ROCHA WILL PERFORM ON FRIDAY, JULY 15, 8:30 PM, AT CLUB BALATTOU. WITH FLÁVIA NASCIMENTO. INFO AND TICKETS HERE!

There’s a tiny little festival you absolutely must check out, music lovers of all stripes! It’s called Garage Concert and it takes place, yes, in a garage. To be precise, in the garage of Ziya Tabassian, a top-flight percussionist who has been heard with the Ensemble Constantinople, among others, and more recently with the Trio Regard Persan. 2023 will see the 9th edition of the event (nine! And I bet you’ve never heard of it!) with 9 concerts. All musicians of the highest possible level, masters and mistresses of their instruments, and all Montrealers (most of them by adoption).

Some we know a little better: Monica Freire and Syrian oud master Nazih Borish (August 15), Didem Basar on kanun (July 16), Vincent Lauzer on recorder (July 18). But for many others, it will be an opportunity to plunge into highly embodied sound worlds, with Maryam Tazhdeh on tar (in duet with Didem Basar on July 16), Zizhou Wang on guzheng (a Chinese plucked string table instrument, on July 13), Anjana Srinivasan on traditional Carnatic violin (from South India, August 10), the “Gangster Yiddish” ensemble Orkestar Kriminal (July 20), Alex Tibbits on “bionic harp” (August 8), LiKouri en chanson (tonight, July 11) and Ziya himself on percussion (August 17). 

Interview with founder and artistic programmer Ziya Tabassian.

PAN M 360: Everyone has an idea of what garage music is. But you take the idea elsewhere…

Ziya Tabassian: Yes, indeed. I came up with the idea in 2013. Me and some friends wanted to play for fun, and my garage was an accessible space. So we did it. We liked it, several people came to see, and I decided to continue the adventure. The principle is simple: it’s a 5 to 7 formula. People arrive at 5 (5pm), the music starts at 6 (6pm) and it lasts about an hour. I offer treats and herbal teas, which I make myself! We enter at 5226 Clark Street (that’s my place!), but it’s in the back, in the garage overlooking the courtyard and alley. It’s not very big, but it’s super friendly.

PAN M 360: Are all the artists present friends of yours?

Ziya Tabassian: Not all of them, although they do become so! I know several of them, but others I discover on the web. For example, the guzheng player, Zizhou Wang, I discovered in a video on Facebook, contacted her, and voilà! She was a great performer of her instrument in China. In Montreal, she needs to make a name for herself now. The same goes for Maryam Tazhdeh, a virtuoso on the tar (an Iranian stringed instrument). She’s a great artist in Iran, but in Montreal, she’s not known. There’s also Anjana Srinivasan, an Indian Carnatic violin teacher who studied with the best in India! My idea is to allow all kinds of Montreal musicians of a very professional level to shine a little, to be heard a little. And at the same time, it stimulates encounters! That’s how it happened for Regard Persan and me: we met, enjoyed each other’s company and formed a trio.

PAN M 360: In the garage and in the courtyard next to the alley… Is there enough space?

Ziya Tabassian: We’ve sometimes had a hundred people, and that’s fine! We have good neighbours, who are often there too.

PAN M 360: Well, if ever many people are stimulated by this interview on PAN M 360, you’ll have a happy problem…

Ziya Tabassian: Yes, it’s possible! I want to move the project forward and take it to another level, to make it grow. I wouldn’t want to go into a space that’s too conventional; I’d like it to stay in an accessible, ordinary place like the garage, but just more spacious. We’ll see.

PAN M 360: What does that tell you about the Montreal scene?

Ziya Tabassian: It’s very good. And above all, it’s very interconnected. People talk to each other and rub shoulders. I didn’t feel that at all in Toronto, for example. Strangely enough. On the other hand, I’d like to bring in more international artists. It’s a challenge, of course. It’s hard to get someone to come for a single concert, given the cost of plane tickets, hotels and so on. But it can be arranged. I’m planning to invite an excellent Indian musician and tabla virtuoso in September, so we can play together. I’ll also be taking advantage of the opportunity to play another part with Regard Persan and Aditya Verma, a great sarod master who lives here in Montreal. And I’d love to bring over an Armenian duduk player, Emmanuel Hovhannisyan, with whom I’ve just recorded a piece for my next album, due out in the autumn. We’ll see, but we might.

PAN M 360: Any other gems?

Ziya Tabassian: Oh, there’s an exceptional Uzbek maqam singer, Nâdira Pirmatova! That would be great, yes. 

PAN M 360: You tickle our ear buds… Thank you so much for what you do. It’s little initiatives like yours that make Montreal even more alive and exciting. 

Ziya Tabassian: Thank you for welcoming me, that’s important too.

Juan Carmona is a leading figure in contemporary flamenco guitar. The French master returns to Montreal after his last performance at the Jazz Festival in 2019.

Juan will be performing at Le National on the 13th of July at 8 PM.

PAN M 360: Thank you Juan for being here. Could you tell me a little more about what you’ll be presenting at the show?

Juan: Of course. I’ll be presenting material from my last two albums, Zyriab 6.7 and Perla de Oriente. Zyriab was produced in collaboration with Istanbul Strings, a phenomenal orchestra that’s a pleasure to work with. As it’s difficult to play with an orchestra on tour, wherever Zyriab goes, I invite an artist from that country. At this show, I’ll be playing with maestro Youba Adjrad, an Algerian singer now living in Montreal, who is simply incredible.

PAN M 360: It seems to me that there are many points of convergence between Flamenco and North African music. In the process of making these albums, did you have any revelations about these points of confluence?

Juan: My first encounter with oriental music was with the music of Morocco. I went to Morocco one day to do a masterclass at the Marrakech Conservatory, and the revelation was that I was very surprised to see the similarities between Arabo-Andalusian music and flamenco. In Marrakech, people dance in a way that’s very, very, very close to flamenco dance, because there’s foot tapping, the same thing, rhymes, it’s a lot of six suites too. There are a lot of similarities and it was a revelation to me, and from there I composed a work called Oria, which mixes Arabo-Andalusian music from Morocco with Gnawa from Marrakech, with a lot of excellent musicians and flamenco, and that was my first encounter. It’s a beautiful piece of work, by the way, and I made a record of it, which went on to win a Grammy Award in Los Angeles.

PAN M 360: At your level of virtuosity, how do you keep in shape on tour?

Juan: That’s a very good question. I often compare a soloist like that to a sportsman, you know, a sportsman has performances because he’s constantly training and the day he doesn’t train, the sportsman can’t have the same performances, it’s impossible. A solo musician is exactly the same: if I don’t have 8 or 9 hours of guitar practice, it’s not possible. You know, I don’t put much faith in gift, you know, I believe in predisposition, but predisposition doesn’t work if you don’t work, so virtuosity, technique, sound, it’s all work, work, work, constantly. It’s never taken for granted.

PAN M 360: Well, I think that comes across clearly in your masterful playing. Flamenco is an incredibly rich tradition, but do you find that in the modern world it’s perhaps less recognised?

Juan: I’m lucky enough to travel all over the world. Recently, we did a tour of the United States, going as far as New Mexico, and then we went to Vancouver too. Flamenco is worldwide. I’ve been to China, I’ve been to Siberia, I’ve been to Hawaii. I’ve been to all the Maghreb countries, to Europe. No, flamenco is a music, it’s a tradition that dates back to the late 18th, early 19th century. And it’s not a fashion phenomenon, which means that today, there are aficionados in every corner of the globe. Everywhere I go, there’s great enthusiasm for this music. Everywhere I go, there’s flamenco.

Renaud Loranger has just completed his fifth festival program since his appointment as artistic director of the Festival de Lanaudière. Yet it feels like he’s just getting started. After just one season (2019), nothing has gone according to plan. 2020 and 2021 were pandemic years, and 2022, a sort of comeback but still haunted by the shadows of an end to the crisis that sometimes still seemed fragile. 2023, in a sense, is the year of a real relaunch. A relaunch that is by no means easy, as Renaud Loranger tells us, whom I was delighted to meet to find out more about this year’s programming, and also about the post-pandemic challenges facing the classical music world.

Renaud Loranger was appointed artistic director of the Festival de Lanaudière in 2018, to the general satisfaction of the classical community. The Montreal native has a long and rich experience in the classical music world. He has lived partly in Europe for several years, and has been or still is associated with prestigious labels such as Deutsche Grammophon, Archiv and Pentatone. In other words, he has developed a solid network that includes renowned organizations, agents and artists. All this allowed Festival friends, and music lovers in general, to dream of great summer musical moments in the Joliette region. As Renaud Loranger himself puts it, the Festival’s first season was “off to a flying start”, confirming the stature of a program concocted by the artistic director. Big names of planetary stature, and our national must-sees. In short, it was a vintage year. The only one before the Crisis.

2023 promises us, in addition to a long-awaited return to “normality”, magical moments with the Montreal Symphony, Montreal Orchestre Métropolitain, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Rafael Payare, Andrew Wan, Charles Richard-Hamelin, the Grands Ballets, etc., but also William Christie and his Arts Florissants, Leonardo Garcia Alarcon with his Choeur de Namur and the Capella Mediterranea (in Monteverdi’s Orfeo! OMG!!), Marco Beasley who will team up with Constantinople, the French trumpeter Lucienne Renaudin Vary with Les Violons du Roy, Richard Galliano on accordion, and so many others. 

So, everything back to normal, really? As if nothing had happened? That’s what we discussed.

PAN M 360: Hello Renaud. What a pleasure to see you again, and to talk about a totally post-pandemic Festival season! When you arrived, you must certainly have had a line, a long-term vision of programming. The pandemic turned everything upside down. Is it back to normal this year, as if nothing had happened? Or have you been forced to rethink your initial ideas from top to bottom?

Renaud Loranger: No. I’m a bit adamant about that. I think good ideas are always good. If they haven’t been implemented, they should be. The general orientations don’t change. Of course, it’s not like it used to be. It’s harder to make long-term plans. Or even medium- to long-term. It’s much harder to convince a certain number of artists to come. Many of them are rethinking the way they work, and they’re not necessarily available to come to America for the summer. They say yes, we’re going to tour North America… in the summer of 2058 (which means they don’t know when). 

I don’t think we’ve found our rhythm yet. We’re trying to project ourselves, but it’s hard, and it’s like that all over the world too, although, in America, we face other challenges than in Europe. 

Another problem is inflation. And yet another, the labour shortage. In Canada and Quebec, we’ve been very well supported by our governments during the crisis, but right now, emergency aid is disappearing. It’s normal, in a way, but it’s happening at the same time as the problems I’ve just mentioned. You can imagine the headache.

That being said, I’m currently seeing some very encouraging signals from the ticketing side. We think people are coming back in good numbers, which wasn’t the case last year.

Pan M 360: Is there a guiding principle behind your 2023 program? I see a lot of “big and safe titles” in terms of repertoire. Has caution been part of your equation, to make sure you bring back the audience?

Renaud Loranger: I wouldn’t say caution, but rather awareness. Awareness of the importance of the repertoire’s canon and its unifying quality. Berlioz’s Fantastique, Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique, Beethoven’s Ninth (which has just been performed with the OSM and Rafael Payare), these remain great pieces that aren’t played as often as you might think. We haven’t played the Ninth in over 15 years! But to answer your question, I’d like to tell you about a well-known mythical figure from Antiquity (a period I’m very fond of): Orpheus. Orpheus is a metaphor that can be applied to all sorts of things. It’s the figure of the artist, it’s the figure of the human being in love whose feelings go too far. Tragedy becomes inevitable. I find that from Monteverdi to Rachmaninov, with the piano concertos and so on, we go right to the bottom of the human soul. We have Orpheus for real, with Monteverdi and Alarcon (it’s going to be an exceptional moment!), but we also have everything that can claim to be Orpheus through symbolism: Tchaikovsky, Chopin and so on. It’s a bit tenuous, but at the same time, I can see the lineage.

PAN M 360: I notice that several concerts are already sold out, including some in the “hors les murs” series. It’s going well, isn’t it?

Renaud Loranger: Yes, it’s a great series. Playing classical music in a brewery or in a squash field is a different and exciting approach. That being said, these concerts are quite intimate, with maybe fifty seats. They fill up pretty quickly. But it’s true that ticket sales are going well. Our church concerts are almost sold out at the moment, and several others will be, if sales are anything to go by. I’m superstitious, I don’t want to be too hasty, but I have to admit it’s encouraging. We can be cautiously optimistic.

PAN M 360: Post-pandemic recovery is a challenge all over the world and in all artistic disciplines. What particularities does this recovery represent for classical music specifically?

Renaud Loranger: That’s a very broad question… As far as we’re concerned, based on our figures and data, we can see that part of the traditional audience has disappeared. They don’t feel like going out and about like they used to. They may still have fears. They may come back, but only from time to time. In the end, it’s likely to be ten times less than before. 

Another challenge, and it’s a paradox, is losing accessibility. What I mean is, we’re chasing money, for the reasons I mentioned earlier, among others. I’m afraid that to keep going we’ll have to raise ticket prices, which inevitably makes music less accessible. Once again, the governments (Canada, Quebec and cities) have been there for us, very much. But going back to pre-pandemic funding won’t be viable, because everything has increased so much in the meantime… Ideally, we’d like to keep this funding and make it permanent. That would ensure that we don’t fall back any further than where we were before.

PAN M 360: Despite this solid support, we’re still lagging behind Europe in this area. Although there are signs that things are changing over there?

Renaud Loranger: First of all, Europe’s tax base is much larger than ours. That’s a simple fact. Secondly, it’s true that support for the arts has been part of their culture for a long time. But it’s also true that we’re seeing the arrival of new political movements, new administrations in certain jurisdictions that are making decisions that are… astonishing. In the UK, the BBC is the target of such gestures. In France, certain city councils (Lyon, Strasbourg, Bordeaux) have become highly politicized, conveying an ideological vision of culture (among other things) as elitist. Classical music, and the classical arts in general, are especially targeted as such. This is a real change. I don’t think it’s positive. This risk of ideological politicization of culture is dangerous. And yet, it’s precisely because the classical arts are publicly funded that they are open to everyone – the opposite of elitism! These are expensive arts in general, and that’s why collective funding is necessary to prevent them from reverting exclusively to the private salons of people who can afford it.

PAN M 360: The Festival is now firmly established in an urban setting, right in the center of Joliette. That’s a new reality. Tell me about that.

Renaud Loranger: It’s funny you should mention that, because I was on the site of our new building a few minutes ago, the Maison de la musique René-Charette, right in the heart of downtown Joliette. We’ll have our offices there, as well as a performance space that will enable us to offer year-round programming. We’ll be able to accommodate around 100 people. It will be intimate, but above all open to all, not just in summer. We’ll be able to offer mediation activities, concerts and so on. We can’t wait to move in. We’re currently in offices near the Amphitheatre, but they weren’t designed for this kind of work. Remember, these are buildings that were built for the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games (Joliette hosted competitions)! They’re well beyond their useful life, let’s say. It will be a renewal with a new energy.

PAN M 360: Thank you for your time and good luck with Festival 2023!

Renaud Loranger: Thank you!

Who is the most globalized African singer of her generation?
Which African singer has achieved the greatest recognition in the West in recent decades?
Who is the winner of 5 Grammy Awards and a recent Polar Prize?
Who was named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2021?
Which African singer is a UNICEF ambassador?
Who was the patron of the Nuits d’Afrique international festival in 2013, and who will be its spokesperson in 2023?

Interviewed via videoconference while in Paris for studio sessions before heading off to Denmark and the UK, Angélique Kidjo answers PAN M 360’s questions. Shortly before her return to the Montreal stage, this Wednesday July 12 at MTELUS to kick off Nuits d’Afrique 2023, the Brooklyn-born Beninese artist still has a lot to say and sing!

PAN M 360: You’ve been a figurehead of cultural Africa for a long time, and you remain so. You’ve won awards in the United States, Europe and Africa. Obviously, your role as spokesperson for Nuits d’Afrique is more important than ever. How do you see this role in 2023?

Angélique Kidjo: I simply want to make things clear. My role as an artist from Africa is to make music that knows no borders. The music I listened to as a child came from all over the world. As Miriam Makeba used to say, why then do we call our music world music? Who gives themselves the right to define who is the first world? The second? The third? That really annoyed Miriam, and she was right.

PAN M 360: Yes, world music, which refers to music from non-Western countries, is an expression that should be banned.

Angélique Kidjo: Over time, it’s become a category that designates the ghetto. In other words, you can’t get out of that hole. Music is music, no matter where it comes from, and that’s why I’ve always refused to be put into a box, a category, a precise genre. I’m a human being, you can’t tell me that just because I’m from Africa, I don’t have the right to do this or that in music. Colonization is over, slavery is over… some people should take note! So why do we continue to maintain this balance of power that has no reason to exist?

PAN M 360: We’re not in the majority when it comes to avoiding the hierarchy of music according to genre, culture, race or nation, but there are more and more of us. You yourself have never made strictly Beninese music, without forgetting your roots. So…

Angélique Kidjo: That’s what music is all about. When people talk to me about cultural appropriation, I say, “But wait, what exactly are you talking about?” Music is shared, it has no agenda, it has no colour, it has no borders. We inspire each other. We use the same notes from North to South, East to West. Wherever we are on this planet, we work with the same sound tools. Of course, when you’re open to the world, there are influences from all over. We’re all immigrants from somewhere.

PAN M 360: At the same time, you’re once again the spokesperson for a festival called Nuit d’Afrique, which is essentially focused on Africa and its communities around the world. So you’re the spokesperson for a festival that focuses on people of African descent.

Angélique Kidjo: Yes, and Nuits d’Afrique is plural, taking in all African skies and all continents. It’s Africa as a whole that we’re celebrating, and that’s always been the case. It’s no longer possible to talk about THE African music, there are some African musics. So for me, Nuits d’Afrique is a starting point for understanding that we live under different skies.

PAN M 360: And so, it’s still important that there are platforms or platforms of artists who represent the entire African movement that has been on this Earth for centuries.

Angélique Kidjo: Yes. And, like everywhere else, today’s young African artists are breaking codes. They don’t give a damn about commercial radio, interviews in old newspapers, in short, all the old ways of marketing themselves. The Internet has made them stars on the African continent and beyond. A young artist born on the web two years ago can now accumulate billions of views. So the game is changing, because technology is opening up the cultural and musical wealth of the African continent.

And African audiences are becoming increasingly sophisticated, diversified and autonomous. If they don’t want to listen to a Western artist, they’re not forced to. Before, we said we had to listen to it because it came from America. Today, it comes from Africa and all over the world. Everyone wants to listen to what interests them.

PAN M 360: You’ve lived through the early days of the globalization of West African pop, from the 80s, 90s, 2000s and 2010s to the present day. What are your perceptions of the current context in your artistic practice?

Angélique Kidjo: Nowadays, it’s much more complicated for young people to have a career, because business doesn’t work the same way. Authors’ rights have been cut to the bone. So if you don’t do a concert, you don’t earn much. Will today’s young artists be patient? It’s too uncertain a time to predict anything. But what is certain is that things have changed completely.

PAN M 360: Is this as true in Africa as it is in the West?

Angélique Kidjo: Oh yes! Dedicated artists like me, Youssou (N’Dour), Salif (Keita) and others used to make a living from their royalties. But they can’t anymore because the way the number of plays of your music on Spotify or other platforms is calculated is no longer the same. The very big artists get all the money and the others don’t even get the crumbs. And that’s not fair.

PAN M 360: What would you like to see happen?

Angélique Kidjo: Legislation needs to be put in place to protect intellectual property. Not everything is for sale in the context of globalization! But what has happened to the sovereignty of cultures and their countries? In the name of globalized profit, all countries are being weakened. If that’s the direction we’re heading in, we’re heading for disaster.

PAN M 360: Now, if we go back to music and talk about your own progression. You’ve always been into a mix involving your own West African and Beninese sources, but also funk, groove, R&B, and jazz. You’ve been doing this with your husband all your life. In terms of production, you always had this vision right from the start.

Angélique Kidjo: It was Léopold Sédar Senghor who said, “The future belongs to métissage.” It’s inevitable. People who cling to the purity of race and spend their whole lives hating people who have done nothing to them, whom they don’t know, are wasting their lives because it’s inevitable. If there had been no mixing, we wouldn’t be the homo sapiens we are today. It’s interbreeding and the forces that come from elsewhere that enable living beings to evolve. We can no longer be human beings and think we can’t live with others. There is a definite danger to our continued presence on Earth if we allow such extreme thinking to take over more and more of our lives. If there’s no more diversity, there’s no more humanity.

PAN M 360: So you reject autarky and isolationism!

Angélique Kidjo: You can’t live alone. Alone, we don’t create anything consistent. We’re there for each other. We speak different languages, but our humanity evolves in this difference, and music is at the center of it all, it’s a common language. I’m a very curious person, I can sing in different languages and my voice changes with each language. When a song takes hold of me, I have to give birth to it. I don’t know any other way.

PAN M 360: You released the album Mother Nature in 2021. So tell us about your latest musical adventures, what inspired you in production, and your desired collaborations.

Angélique Kidjo: Mother Nature started with the onset of the pandemic. I was supposed to give a concert on March 14, 2020, at Carnegie Hall with Manu Dibango, to celebrate 60 years of African countries becoming independent. Two days before, the concert was cancelled and I came back to Paris to be closer to my mom, as it’s a five- or six-hour flight from Paris to Cotonou. On March 28, 2020, my father-in-law died of covid. A few weeks later, Manu Dibango also died… a month later, Tony Allen. Incredibly absurd!

So I thought, what am I going to do? I’ve got no more concerts, but I’ve got a studio at home. So I have to keep writing music. So I started preparing this album. A few months later, in October, there was a revolt among Nigeria’s youth against police violence. And that was another blow. I knew that one day, young people would take to the streets to express such indignation. So I contacted Yemi Alade, who told me she too was on the streets. I told her to get out of there, because the authorities were shooting at people without knowing who were the rioters and who were not. I tell her that the only weapon we have is music. I urge him to leave the street and think with me about what we can do. Leaving through constructive discussion rules out violence, whether verbal or physical. Yemi agreed, we did the song Dignity and that’s where it started.

PAN M 360: Then you showed your penchant for Afrobeats!

Angélique Kidjo: Well, I said to myself, I’m going to reach out to this new generation of artists and ask them: what do you want to say? What inspires you? What mobilizes you? Climate change, for which the African continent is going to pay one of the heaviest prices? That’s how we started. And in fact, Mother Nature is for me an album of transmission, because the transmission of knowledge is at the heart of our Africanness and also of our humanity. Without speech, our brains don’t develop. Without speech, we’re not human.

PAN M 360: So, you’ve worked with some of the youngest artists on the scene, such as Mr Eazi, Burna Boy, Yemi Alade, Shungundzo, Sampa The Great, Blue Lab Beats, Ghetto Boy, EARTHGANG, without excluding the more experienced, such as Salif Keita or even M. Angélique Kidjo.

Angélique Kidjo: What was particularly interesting for me was to see the professionalism of this new generation. I’d send them my vocals and my own demo tracks, and they’d send me back impeccable stuff. It’s a dream come true to have achieved such African professionalism in production. Before, there weren’t enough tools, whereas today with the Internet and a computer, you can do absolutely fantastic things. And you can work remotely.

PAN M 360: You didn’t have much choice but to work remotely during the pandemic!

Angélique Kidjo: Yes, it was a bit frustrating for me because I would have loved to have people in my studio so we could play and sing together. But still… it worked out perfectly. You have to be flexible, things change, you have to change with them. That’s always been my aim in life, to think only of today and tomorrow. So I’ve adapted to all this technology and this type of remote production. I’ll continue to do so.

PAN M 360: Afrobeats feature strongly on the Mother Nature album.

Angélique Kidjo: Nigerian music has always been one of my favourites. But there’s also Jamaican dancehall in the afrobeats, there’s R&B, there’s funk. These rhythms all have African roots, they’re part of human DNA. Each of us carries a little bit of Africa.

PAN M 360: Are you still passionate about performing?

Angélique Kidjo: I can’t live without the stage. If there’s a paradise on earth, it’s the stage. When I go on stage, it’s like starting all over again: no concert is a foregone conclusion. As my mother used to tell me, you have to be ready to be spiritually naked to go on stage. When you understand this idea, you’re really at the service of the music. Your ego allows you to get up on stage and fight stage fright. Once you get past that, everything else is just bliss.

Last April, Productions Nuits d’Afrique held the 16th edition of its annual Sylis d’or de la musique du monde Made in Montréal competition. A competition that has become a fixture on the city’s music scene. Among the many groups that didn’t make it to the finals, we at Pan M have singled out four that we’d like to make better known to the general public. Context being what it is in competitions, semi-finalists are too easily and quickly forgotten. 

Traditional Eastern European, Gypsy, Balkan and Jewish klezmer music has no shortage of good advocates in Montreal. Add a little blues and Middle Eastern influences, and you’ve got a young ensemble called Kallisto that offers a refreshing take on some of the commonplaces associated with this music. Nothing to do with Lost Fingers. 

During the Sylis d’or 2023 competition, we noticed this group of excellent musicians: Arthur Prieur (cello), Edy Silva (flute), Hugh Lapham (double bass), Jean-François McDonnell (guitar) and Josée MacInnis (clarinet and bass clarinet). Coherent ensemble playing, impeccable technique and a happy blend of original influences within a musical architecture already hyper-represented on the Montreal scene – that’s what we retained from Kallisto’s performance at the Sylis d’or, unfortunately no further than the semi-finals. 

Meet one of our favorites from the Sylis d’or 2023 semi-finals, Kallisto.

Interview by Frédéric Cardin

Pan M 360: Hello gang! Kallisto, a happy marriage of klezmer/manouche/blues/Balkans/Middle East… How did you get here?

Kallisto: (Josée MacInnis) I moved to Montreal 5 years ago (in 2018) and was looking for musicians to do what I’ve always wanted to do, of course, which is play! I came across an Algerian rock band with whom I jammed a bit, but the group broke up just before the pandemic. Then I got the urge to join a world music band. I have a PhD in classical music, but I love jazz and I love world music. I was into gypsy music and I had some musician roommates (a flautist and a cellist) who got on board. Then, as I’m Jewish, I also wanted to explore these musical roots with klezmer and Eastern European music. Other musicians joined in, and the result was Kallisto.

Pan M 360: Did you return to your Jewish roots late in life? Why did this happen?

Kallisto: Let’s just say that where I used to live (London, Ontario, Nova Scotia), opportunities were pretty rare. Montreal was a catalyst for me. And it fed my creative and artistic process.

Pan M 360: How did the rest of it come about?

Kallisto: There was a lot of music in my family home. My mother is an opera singer. Then, while I was in London, I got involved with a Greek-Turkish/Armenian trad band, with oud and double bass. I played with them for a few years. The awakening of Jewish traditions slowly began at that point, as some of the musicians were Jewish too, but of the Sephardic (North African) branch, whereas my own roots are more Ashkenazi (Eastern European). Montreal finally allowed all this to blossom!

Pan M 360: How would you sum up your time at the contest?

Kallisto: It was a great experience. We needed that stress and pressure to perform in front of an attentive audience and a jury. It’s a good way of progressing towards professional status.

Pan M 360: Participating bands also need to be able to mobilize fans to support them and help them in the popular vote portion. What do you think of this need?

Kallisto: From a classical music perspective, but that’s just my opinion, it’s simpler and more reliable to rely solely on the judges’ vote. We’re then in control of our part of the equation – the music and the live performance. We rehearse and work on our product, and know that if something goes wrong, we’ll get feedback, based on reliable, measurable scales. It’s more difficult with the audience. All sorts of things can influence the vote. One stormy night and wham, our support pales in comparison with the previous evening. Or, if we have different types of audience, it can change the result. Take the Salsa band (La Tribu): wow! First, there are, like, 12 of them on stage, and they bring in a bunch of people who dance (salsa) and are motivated to cheer them on for a night or two. It’s fantastic! It’s an advantage, and they deserve it. But for us, it’s different: our audience tends to be made up of musician friends. And they go to dozens of concerts a year. It’s harder to motivate them to come to this one in particular. That said, I fully understand the idea behind this aspect of the competition: we don’t want to have only ensembles that play in a vacuum, mainly for a few friends. We want to develop groups that can propel the Montreal world music scene forward in terms of both quality and reputation. And that’s just fine.

Pan M 360: What’s missing right now to keep you going?

Kallisto: Places to play that are somewhere between bars where we pass the hat and the big official venues. That’s what’s missing in Montreal. Le Divan Orange was that kind of place where you could get paid, be professional and still be able to afford the venue, and take less risk of having an empty room when you’re less well known. There used to be other places like that, but there aren’t any left….

Pan M 360: Well, I hope you go straight to the next level and play at, like, Bourgie Hall!

Kallisto: That would be nice indeed… Thank you!

Photo credit : Nathalie Maynard

Last April, Productions Nuits d’Afrique held the 16th edition of its annual Sylis d’or de la musique du monde Made in Montréal competition. It’s a competition that’s become a fixture on the city’s music scene. Of the many bands that didn’t make it through to the final, we at PAN M 360 have picked out four that we’d like to make better known to the general public. The context being what it is in competitions, the semi-finalists are all too easily and quickly forgotten. 

Méduse is one of these groups that caught the attention of music lovers lucky enough to be at Club Balattou on 20 April 2023 in Montreal. A mix of music ranging from Latino to Balkan folk, with an exciting sprinkling of operatic vocal flights, Méduse’s product convinces everyone with the exceptional quality of its collective musicality and the technical finesse displayed by the individuals who form its essence. The group itself seems reluctant to give itself a precise definition: alternative world? International folk? Exotic song? Trad opera? A bit of everything, probably.

We were very impressed by the Méduse performance: Gabrielle Cloutier (vocals), Joshua Greenberg (guitar, banjo), Nicolas Lafortune (percussion), Nominoë Crawford (violin), Olivier Salazar (keyboard) and Blanche Méthé (tuba). So, we wanted to give them the visibility they deserve, in keeping with the high quality of the ensemble’s live performances.

Meet one of our favorites from the Sylis d’or 2023 semi-finals:  Méduse.

PAN M 360: We’d like to give you the opportunity to be better known by a wider public, so let’s start at the beginning: how did the band come about?

Méduse: (Gabrielle) Josh started the project. We knew each other and he offered to let me sing and come up with melodies, or even write them, so that we could do something linked to the world of trad and acoustic jazz. We found lots of other members of the scene, which is a big gang but everyone knows everyone else. Most of us came through Saint-Lo (the Saint-Laurent CEGEP). It was during the pandemic, so we had a bit of time to put the thing together. But it happened very quickly. Within a few months, we were accepted for a residency project at Mont-Louis in Gaspésie (August 2022). We had to design a show and put it on that same evening! Just like that. That was the birth of Méduse.

PAN M 360: Méduse is a happy blend, a special mix of traditional, classical, jazz and lots of other things. How do you strike the right balance?

Méduse: Nominoë brings a lot of ideas and compositions from the violin. Then we add a bunch of parts inspired by our personal musical identities. My background is classical singing (I did a Master’s at McGill in early music and baroque), Josh has links with Turkish-Greek music, and European traditional music in general, Olivier comes from jazz, Blanche too, but with a classical foot, Nico is into Latin percussion… In short, it’s all that.

PAN M 360: It’s all that, but at the same time you have to tie all these influences together in a coherent and convincing way. Which is what I think you did at the Sylis d’or. Let’s talk about the Sylis. It’s a great showcase for you?

Méduse: Oh yes, absolutely! It’s a great asset to be able to have a bill there, even if it’s only for 2 or 3 concerts. 

PAN M 360: There are so many good bands and artists in Montreal. The Sylis don’t give them all the chance to express themselves as often as they deserve. They just don’t have enough room. What else is there to support bands like yours? And conversely, what is missing?

Méduse: The CAM (Conseil des Arts de Montréal) on tour is very good. But again, there are a lot of applicants and places are limited, which is normal. What’s missing the most are intermediate venues to play. There are the small bars and there are the good, big venues. Nothing in between. There used to be the Divan Orange, but it’s closed. There’s nothing like it now. It’s a big void.

PAN M 360: You’re not the only ones to have told me that. I hope that someone (and even more than one) will take over. That said, it’s a tough niche and the income is meagre…. Are you satisfied with your performance?

Méduse: Yes, under the circumstances. I had two ear infections! But I don’t think it showed.

PAN M 360: I can confirm that

Méduse: Thank you! That’s the school of classical singing. No matter what you’re going through, it should never interfere with the music.

PAN M 360: How would you like to develop Méduse?

Méduse: We like the theatrical side of the music. My background in opera helps a bit, lol. I’d like us to develop the dramatic aspect of the songs even more. I’d say the ideal situation for Méduse would be to collaborate with dance, theatre and circus artists. In the 2nd album in preparation, there will be more singing and talking. I want to tell stories. 

PAN M 360: Méduse… Why the name?

Méduse: It just came about. We had to come up with a name when we had to put on a show very quickly. We tried all sorts of things, but at one point, I can’t remember why, we were talking about jellyfish (which translates as méduse in French). They come in all sorts of shapes and colours. We thought it would fit. That’s about it.

Last April, Productions Nuits d’Afrique held the 16th edition of its annual Sylis d’or competition. It’s a competition that’s become a fixture on the city’s music scene. Of the many groups that didn’t make it through to the finals, we at PAN M 360 have picked out four that we’d like to make better known to the general public. The context being what it is in competitions, the semi-finalists are too easily and quickly forgotten. 

Cône Orange, is an ensemble firmly rooted in the city’s solid musical eclecticism. From jazz to funk, African music, hip hop, rock, punk, bossa and more, this is a well-crafted multi-style musical recipe that deserves to be experienced live, as was the case on 19 April 2023 at the Balattou club.

The band is made up of Simon Lindsay (drums), Enora Trebern (voice), Nikita Carelov (guitar),  Francis Will (bass) and Julian Shively (piano).

PAN M 360: Cône Orange is a funny name that immediately conjures up images of Montreal (because there are lots of construction works in the city)…

Cône Orange: Yes, that’s deliberate. It’s a symbol. It makes us take detours and that’s a bit what we do in music with our mix of genres and styles.

PAN M 360: How did you get together?

Cône Orange: We all joined the band for different reasons. I (Eeno) had just arrived in Montreal, I was looking for people to jam with and thanks to a classified ad in a McGill network, I met Nikita. Francis joined us through an advert and then we started looking for a drummer with a jazz-funk profile, and Simon came along. It was through a series of unexpected detours that we all ended up on the same stage.

PAN M 360: It’s as if orange cones had taken you where you weren’t expecting, precisely… What are your musical references?

Cône Orange: It’s a bit all over the place, depending on which one of us is involved. Simon really likes the intersection of hip-hop and jazz like MF Doom or J Dilla. Herbie Hancock, from the Headhunters era, or the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Tower of Power are also inspirational sources for him. Then, on the more ‘classical’ side, Bossa nova is a favourite. Eeno finds herself listening to Lauren Hill, Nai Palm and Nina Simone, who she heard quite a lot of at home (her parents were quite jazz-minded). African music too. For Francis, we’re more into rock, punk and instrumental hip-hop. Jazz came later. We end up with music that’s well grounded in a solid jazz history, but very much accentuated by today’s sounds.

PAN M 360: What made you want to enter the Sylis d’or competition?

Cône Orange: We started playing together just for fun, doing covers, but we quickly evolved by adding compositions. That was around 2021-2022. At the end of 2022, we played at the Rimouski Jazz Festival, then came back to Montreal and played a few gigs here and there. That’s when we thought it would be worth doing the competition, which is a fixture on the Montreal scene, almost legendary as an event. It’s important and it’s a great way of getting our name out there. We thought we were ready and that we had what it took to take part.

PAN M 360: Even though you’re more jazz than ”world”… How would you sum up your experience? Was it a good medium for you?

Cône Orange: (Eeno) I have to admit I was surprised when Francis told us he’d submitted our application. But we’re really happy. It’s been a great experience. (Simon) Looking back, I realize that during the semi-finals, we had to remove a bossa piece, and in the end that may have worked against us. Especially as it’s the only ‘’world’’ style in our repertoire. Nevertheless, it’s an exceptional springboard, if only for the experience and the obligation to perform in a demanding and closely watched context, both by the public and the judges.

PAN M 360: How do you see your stylistic marriage? Are there any elements of your sound still to be defined? Is there anything that is definitively fixed?

Cône Orange: (Simon) On the spot, I’d say we’re already pretty unique, but of course, there are still things to refine. We’ll take the time to do that. It may still be a bit fragmented, but in truth, plurality is part of our identity. All these detours, as we used to say, it’s the orange cones that make us do them, and that’s good for us. What’s fixed is the culture of solo improv. It doesn’t matter whether we’re doing bossa, hip hop, pure jazz or rock, I think there will always be these improvised solos by the various members of the band, and that will always be a common thread.

PAN M 360: And if we want to see you soon?

Cône Orange: We’ll be at the Festival de rue Petite-Bourgogne on 15 July. We’ll also be at L’Esco (the Escogriffe bar on rue Saint-Denis in Montreal) on 27 July. A few other dates are in the pipeline, but there’s nothing official yet. We’re open to being booked! We want to play!

PAN M 360: I can confirm that it’s worth it. The proof is in this interview. 

Cône Orange: Thank you!

Last April, Productions Nuits d’Afrique held the 16th edition of its annual world music competition, les Sylis d’or. It’s a competition that’s become a fixture on the city’s music scene. Of the many bands that didn’t make it through to the finals, we at PAN M 360 have picked out four that we’d like to make better known to the general public. The context being what it is in competitions, the semi-finalists are too easily and quickly forgotten. 

The Latino scene in Montreal is becoming so rich and varied that one group has specialized in a very specific musical style: Son jarocho, a traditional music with an authentic local flavor, originating in the Mexican Veracruz region. El Balcon, as it’s called, is a typically Montreal areopagus of artists from just about everywhere, but united by a shared love of an art form. Perched high up on the first floor are Charles Cantin (vocals), Nominoë Crawford (violin), Valeria De Marre (vocals), Joshua Greenberg (guitar), Nicolas Lafortune (percussion) and Alexandre Marchand (bass).

But the metropolis being what it is, you may not be surprised to hear echoes of Balkan music, Middle Eastern influences and even Keb trad scattered throughout the group’s songs! Yes, a world-city like Montreal always ends up crossing paths with its roots and identity. In the end, that’s why we love it.

Meet one of our favorites from the Sylis d’or 2023 semi-finals, El Balcon.

PAN M 360: Hi everyone! Since we’re here to get to know you better, let’s start with the basics: where does El Balcon come from and how was the band formed?

El Balcon: It’s a question of chance that led to other chances. I met a Mexican percussionist passing through Montreal. We played together, then two other people he knew joined in, after which, one thing led to another and then another percussionist joined in, then Josh, who I already knew and with whom I played in another band that had just split up. All in all, a whole bunch of people from a wide network of traditional musics of various origins, but centered on the vision of Mexican music from Veracruz.

Pan M 360: Why this focus on a specific type of Mexican music, the Son jarocho?

El Balcon: Many of us have a strong connection with Mexico. Whether it’s because we’re looking to get back to the roots of our Latin cultural connections, to learn the typical instrument-making techniques of the region, simply out of musical interest or because it’s a country of origin (Valeria came to Quebec from Mexico and was looking for people to play her country’s music), Mexico is a common trait for several members of the band. Son jarocho is a very communal music in Mexico. You hear it at weddings, parties, christenings, etc., and in all the villages, which each have their own way of playing it. What’s more, we’ve added a personal dimension to the interpretations here: elements of Balkan music, which we really like! As we arrange the traditional pieces so as to hear other sounds in them, and our original compositions in the arocho style also incorporate this kind of peculiarity (for example, transforming a 6/8 in a ⅞, more typical of the Balkans), in the end, people listening can hardly tell which pieces are arranged standards, and which are new pieces of our own.

PAN M 360: So it’s a common core of traditional music?

El Balcon: Yes, we mix a lot of things, but the focal point is that it’s acoustic and traditional. Of course, Son jarocho is the style that takes up the most space. It’s in certain inflections, certain rhythms, certain harmonic deviations that, from time to time, people will perceive other influences. Let’s say it’s Son jarocho coloured by other influences here and there.

PAN M 360: What is it that unites the world’s diverse traditional music?

El Balcon: The community aspect, probably. From the outset, most of these forms of music have been the result of the mixing and intermingling of populations, even before they became factors in the identity of a particular community. Bagpipes are a good example. People say “it’s Scottish”, but in truth its origins are Persian! One day, through trade, travel and commerce, a guy from Scottland brought it home, told his friends “Yo listen to this, it’s cool!”, and then, for all sorts of reasons, they appropriated this instrument. Even Bach drew on everything from the Italian, French and Germanic music of his time to create a formidable synthesis.

PAN M 360: The principle of encounters takes on a new meaning with the global meeting points that are cosmopolitan world cities of the 21st century, ultra-multicultural cities like Montreal and many others, which allow and offer special conditions for the artistic expression of these crossroads?

El Balcon: Yes, it’s amazing the kind of possibilities that are opening up now. Of course, the web is part of it, but it’s more dynamic to play with flesh-and-blood human beings than through Zoom sessions. Which means that the very cosmopolitan nature of a city, as well as its appeal to artists (not all multicultural cities inspire so much creativity, either), allows for an unparalleled level of creative options.

PAN M 360: Let’s get back to Son arocho. What does this musical genre represent in Mexico? Is it pan-Mexican, or is it local to Veracruz?

El Balcon: It started out in Veracruz, but then spread all over the place. Over time, though, it became all sorts of other things elsewhere. But in Veracruz, they’ve kept it very authentic, even if that authenticity varies. Each village, each community can have ITS own style of son arocho, with its own particularities. Son arocho represents a communion of identity, even a spiritual one, for those who play or listen to it. It is ceremonial and accompanies gatherings. It’s also everyday music, played by everyone. We often see 95-year-olds accompanied by 4-5-year-olds! You can also see 2 to 150 people playing at the same time! Before radio, it was the music of ordinary people. But there was a long lull until the years 1990-2000. Then we saw a new generation reclaiming this music, collecting and cataloguing the traditional musical corpus before losing it. Now the boom is perceptible right here in Montreal, which has an already important and growing Mexican community. There are a number of Son arocho groups, and many fandangos (festive gatherings) are being organised all over the place. The Montreal scene is a lot of fun.

PAN M 360: Do you feel you’re the standard-bearers of Mexican culture in Quebec?

El Balcon: Well, we can lay claim to that, but we’re just as proud of the fact that we include Quebecois culture, rather than just Mexican. El Balcon’s role is to give big love. We want people to have fun.

PAN M 360: How would you sum up your experience at the Sylis?

El Balcon: We’re happy. We met some excellent bands, took part in one of Montreal’s most emblematic competitions and got ourselves seen and known a bit. 

PAN M 360: Can we hear you soon?

El Balcon: We’ll be at the Nuits d’Afrique festival on 20 July. After that, we’ll be playing at various festivals and touring across Quebec (Gaspésie, Rimouski, Gaspé, etc.). We’ve also just recorded our 4th album, which should be out in November. We’ve also recorded a half-hour programme that will be broadcast on MATV (Only available in Quebec. You have to be a Videotron TV client to have access). If you’d like to find out more about the Montreal arocho scene, and find out the dates and venues of upcoming fandango events, you should definitely visit the Son Jarocho Montreal Facebook page. 

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